


Fever Dream

by beepalais



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Domestic, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:56:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepalais/pseuds/beepalais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Buck.” Steve says, soft as he can, so he won't start to cough again. The light from the stove hits his face just right, makes his eyes light up bright, spring sky blue. Bucky's head aches just looking at him. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>1942, in fits and starts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This fic involves the headcanon that Bucky shipped out prior to TFA (hence his Sergeant ranking, etc.) and you can read a great meta on the logistics of that [here](http://laporcupina.tumblr.com/post/91570742639/the-life-and-times-of-sergeant-james-bucky). 
> 
> So much thanks to [kawaiiju](http://kawaiiju.tumblr.com/) for putting up with me rambling about this for actually a week and a half. This straight up would not have been accomplished without her. 
> 
> The file name for this was poor bucky.docx so not much in the way of happy resolution here.

In the back room of the apartment, with snow sticking in icy wet clumps to the dirty fire escape window, Steve is drawing with a heat compress strapped to his chest and blankets wound all around him like a cocoon. He's sick, again, the third bad spell this winter and Bucky wakes up every day wondering if this is gonna be the one that does him in.

Bucky lies on his side in Steve's bed, fiddling with the radio. It's just past Christmas, without a doubt his least favorite time of the year.

“Buck.” Steve says, soft as he can, so he won't start to cough again. Bucky glances over to him, sleepily bares his teeth. Steve's a sliver of a whisper of a man, bundled in all those blankets, every one they have in the house and then two borrowed from next door. Steve takes the end of his pencil out of his mouth, wobbling it between his fingers.

“You should go to sleep.” The light from the stove hits his face just right, makes his eyes light up bright, spring sky blue. Bucky's head aches just looking at him.

“Don't need to.” Bucky says. It's a lie, and Steve knows it. Bucky gets up before the sun does, to spend the day running machines that make the parts that make the ships that'll save the world, or so he's told. “Anyways, my show hasn't even started yet.” He pats the top of the radio for good measure with one limp hand.

Steve rises from his armchair and comes over to the bed, the blankets trailing behind him like he's some wizened storybook king. He curls up at the end of it next to Bucky's socked feet, settles with his back against the baseboard. “You don't gotta sit up with me. I'll be fine, and I won't have you using me as an excuse for sleeping on the job. Go to bed.”

Two lies in just as many minutes and the sad thing is that isn't even a record. Bucky smiles at him, pokes a foot into the blankets in the general area of Steve's stomach and Steve grabs at his ankle, his little hand only just able to circle the whole thing. “Don't tell me what to do, punk.”

From the radio, there's the tri-tone that signals the start of Flash Gordon. Bucky reaches a hand over and blindly fiddles with the dial until he gets the signal as strong as he can. Steve shifts up and resettles with his legs crossed, grabbing Bucky's other foot so he can prop them both in his lap, his hands tight around them. Bucky kicks at him a little bit, not even half as hard as he really could but Steve laughs anyway, tugging Bucky's legs straight again and pinning his ankles down. In the spring and the fall, when Steve's lungs aren't so bad, sometimes they can grapple for real but nights like these, Bucky's afraid of breathing on him wrong.

“Go to bed, Buck. I'm serious.” Steve repeats and Bucky pretends not to hear him, cocking his head towards the radio. He's really too old for the serials like this and any of the other fellas would tease him for it, but Steve never does. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve giving a heavy sigh, opening his mouth no doubt to tell Bucky off again. Steve can do this all night, Bucky knows. Steve won’t give up because he doesn’t know how.

“'m not tired, Steve.” Bucky tells him flatly, looking at him down the line of his own body. “I'm a grown man and I'm not going to go to bed if I'm not tired.” Steve huffs, turning his head towards the window and his eyes flash again, that strange cornflower blue.

Bucky absolutely is tired, his eyelids heavy and his body sore from work. He could fall asleep right here, to the sounds of Flash Gordon beating the pulp out of some alien invaders and Steve's breathing, labored but steady at the end of the bed. The room is warm around him and the bed sheets smell like Steve—turpentine and pencil shavings and the regular scent of his skin--, and he's vaguely aware of Steve's hand on his bare shin, his fingertips drumming out a pattern against the bone. He lets his eyes drift close, listening to Flash defeat the alien villain with a laser rifle and a well timed quip. Bucky barely hears it, but it must be funny because Steve laughs. It's too hard, though, and turns into cough that doesn't stop, his breath rattling in his throat.

Bucky's up like a shot, clambering to the end of the bed next to him, putting one hand on Steve’s back, the other on his front. There are reasons, of course, why Bucky can't let himself sleep.

“You're alright, Stevie, just breathe through it.” he says. “Just like that, in through your nose, c'mon, you got it—” Steve's skinny chest shudders underneath Bucky's hands, fragile as a birdcage as he doubles over, wheezing. Bucky hunches in close, rubbing Steve's back in wide, slow circles, mumbling in his ear to just keep at it, please, please, please.

There's a horrible few seconds where he chokes, not breathing at all but then he sputters and gasps and inhales once, twice, three times, thank God. Bucky sinks next to him, rests his forehead against Steve's temple and they breath together, their chest rising and falling in synch. That was close, Bucky thinks. And it's only going to keep getting closer and closer until one day it won't be very close at all.

He tugs on Steve's arm, guiding him down the bed to rest his head against the pillow. “You okay now?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods, his mouth a thin line. Bucky lies down next to him, slipping the mass of blankets over them both. He's got his own room off of the kitchen, but he'd rather be out here in case something happens. He doesn't sleep in his room much, come to think of it. Maybe when their lease is up, they should just get a two room place and save themselves the trouble.

“So now you sleep after I've gone and tired myself out?” Steve asks, poking him in the side. Bucky smiles at nothing in the dark, wishing the show was still playing. The wind howls through Brooklyn, rattling the window something fierce.

Steve looks over at him blearily, still somehow ready to pick a fight with him after all that, and Bucky brushes his knuckles over Steve's jaw in a weak imitation of a punch. “Punk.” he mumbles.

“Jerk.”

Bucky pulls the blankets around them both, laughing in a pillow.

*

In the bright beginnings of spring, Bucky and Steve sit on a plaid-checked blanket in the middle of Prospect Park, a little basket propped between them with the crumbs of their lunch collecting at the bottom. It hadn't been much, just some bread and cheese, two apples, and a Hershey's bar split between them both, but it was the best meal Bucky'd eaten in ages.

Other picnickers dot the lawn around them and little kids run back and forth, chasing kites and baseballs and wooden hoops. The new flowers shake on their branches, and the sun beats down on them all, pleasant and warm. Bucky feels bad for anyone who's got to stay inside on a day like today. Should be criminal, he thinks, to make a man sit in a building or a factory on the first nice day of the year.

Steve's bracing himself against the picnic basket, his sketchbook propped open on his bent knees and the little metal case that holds his pencils and his chalks open at his side. Bucky lies at his feet and stares up at the clouds, twisting daffodil stalks into a chain between his long fingers. Bucky's not a static person by nature, always looking for what's next to be done, but the weather's got him languid. His limbs feel heavy and settled, like he's been filled with water.

A red rubber ball rolls onto their blanket, knocking against Steve's foot, and its owner toddles up shortly after, dressed in a sailor hat and short pants, his chubby calves covered with argyle socks. Folks who live around here still have a little money, even with times being what they are.

“'orry 'ir,” the kid lisps. He can't be more than three or four, with a big gap where his front teeth should be. “Can I have my ball?”

“Sure, kiddo.” Steve smiles at him, holding it out for him. The boy takes it in both small hands, with a serious nod of thanks that makes Bucky laugh. A tall, pretty girl with wild curls of dark hair—must be the boy's governess, or his sister—runs up after him, calling his name.

“So sorry,” she says to them both, her hand settling on the top of the boy's head. “Was he bothering you?”

“Not at all.” Bucky says, sitting up to look at her. She's got a particular mouth, pouty and red. “Just came to visit.” The boy shakes the ball at her for emphasis, his little body wobbling with the movement.

“My apologies, anyway,” she kneels down next to the kid to fiddle with his hair, his clothes. “I turn away for one moment and—“

“Miss,” Bucky stops her. “it's really not a problem.” She turns to look at him and her face flushes pink when she sees that he's just in his shirtsleeves, the buttons undone low enough to expose his collarbone and a bit of the dark hair on his chest. She averts her gaze, straightening the boy's jacket and toying with the buttons on his sleeves.

Beside him, Steve gives a barely perceptible snort.

Bucky idly flirts with her for a few more minutes, but nothing comes of it. There's a moment when she looks up at him through her lashes with a faint, pretty smile, and he thinks maybe he's got her, but then the kid tugs at her arm, yawning, and she apologetically excuses herself and the boy both. Bucky watches them walk away before lying back down, tossing an arm over his eyes.

The air is thick with pollen and Steve's allergies are acting up. He sneezes three time in a row, sniffling into a handkerchief. Once, years ago, Bucky had stolen a handful of flowers from the park gardens to weave into crowns for them both. They had run around with them for hours, pretending to be kings and it barely mattered that Steve had to stop every fifteen minutes to have a sneezing fit. Those crowns were long wilted and dead now, but Steve is still right here.

The sound of pencil moving against paper stops. “Can you put your arm back where it was?” Steve asks him. Bucky dutifully moves his hand back to rest on his stomach, and the pencil scratches resume.

“When are you going to paint me again?” Bucky asks.

Steve shrugs, his tongue caught between his teeth and his brow furrowed. There's a smudge of chocolate on the corner of his mouth. “Dunno. You're a pain in the ass to paint.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. You fidget too much.”

Bucky sighs dramatically and Steve looks at him over the top of the sketchpad, grinning wryly. Bucky pinches at his ankle and Steve toes him in the side.

“Can I see it, then?”

Steve stops drawing and surveys whatever's on the paper, gnawing on the end of his pencil, before flipping it around so Bucky can look. It's not done—there's a white void along Bucky's left side where his arm and shoulder will eventually be—but the rest of him is all there, lying on his back with one knee up. His face is in three-quarters profile, looking upwards, and above the sketch, Steve's chalked in the colors of a sunset. Bucky brushes his index fingertip over his paper face, careful not to smear the graphite. He didn't think his eyelashes were so long, or his cheekbones so sharp.

“Is it good?” Steve asks, a hint of nervousness in his voice, even though he's gotta know what Bucky's gonna say by now, right?

Bucky draws his hand back and gives Steve a smile. “'Course it's good. It's perfect.” Steve rolls his eyes but he's smiling like the sun, and he turns the sketchpad back around and continues drawing, the _skritch skritch skritch_ of his pencil lulling Bucky back into the calm.

The sunlight does him good, bleaches him clean from head to toe the way water never could. He dreams of Steve standing in the park, his hands sun-warm and dripping with oil paints, streaking lines of color up the column of Bucky's throat. When he wakes, it's nearly dusk and Steve is saying “Bucky, hey, it's getting dark, we gotta go--”, his hands pressing against Bucky's side, fingertips stained pink and gold.

*

****  
  


He finds Steve in a dark alley, bleeding.

Steve, in an alley, hurt: this is a situation Bucky knows well, has gone through dozens of times before but this isn't the same. Steve is crumpled against the ground, and doesn't even try to stagger up at the sound of Bucky's footsteps. He doesn't move at all and that's when Bucky runs the remaining length of the alley, crashing to his knees down next to him. Blood pools on the ground, wetting his trousers, and Jesus, there's so much of it—leaking from Steve's nose and mouth and body.

Next door, a band is playing and the music screams out the windows, but he barely notices. Steve is bleeding and all Bucky hears is the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“Steve? Stevie?”

Steve's hands, shaking and dark, come up to curl around Bucky's collar. There's a jagged tear in his shirt at the junction of his shoulder and his torso, dark blood blossoming across the white fabric. Bucky presses his hands to it, and the blood stains them, too, leaves them slippery and wet. He pulls the shirt fabric aside to take a look at the wound and Steve's whole body jerks. He hisses between his teeth, the hands on Bucky's collar tightening. Bucky suppresses a gag as he realizes the severity of the wound, and he tries to hold in the blood back with his hands but it's not enough. He can feel Steve lapsing into shock like he's drifting underwater, heavy as a breezeblock.

“Stevie, what happened?” His voice pitches wildly. Steve's eyes roll in his head, unable to focus and Bucky wants to shake him but knows that he can't. “Did they stab you?”

Steve manages to move his head, one hand coming up to cover Bucky's against the wound on his chest. His eyes are already starting to bruise, the blood around his nose and mouth beginning to dry and crust. “Shoved me against...one of those crates--” he says, and his voice is there, audible at least. Bucky's heart does somersaults in his chest. “Musta got caught on a sharp edge or something. They beat it soon as they saw all the...all the--”

Bucky can deal with bruises and black eyes and scrapes but not this, not all this blood. He can feel a smear of it on this throat, hot and wet.

“Stevie, I gotta pick you up, we gotta get up, okay?”

He needs a hospital, mother of God, please. A place with real doctors and surgery tables because Bucky can't—Bucky can't fix this. Steve has to go there, even if they don't have the money, even if it costs more money than Bucky can pay in a thousand lifetimes because this is not how Steve goes out. Not from some god awful shipping crate, not from some punk bullies, and certainly not in a dirty back alley in Brooklyn. Nuh-uh, that's not how it's ending for Steve Rogers, not if Bucky can help it.

Steve protests, tells Bucky to just stitch it up at home, they can't afford the hospital. His words are tough but his eyes are huge and terrified, one hand still gripping Bucky's collar. He's lost what little color he had; his face is so pale it's nearly blue. Bucky pulls his own hands away from the wound and lets Steve cover it. He gets one arm under Steve's knees, the other across his back.

“Keep your hand there, press as hard as you can. I got ya, Steve. Everything's gonna be okay, but you gotta hold still for me, alright?”

He stands as smoothly as he can, staggering a little under the weight--Steve's a small bit but he's still a buck-five. Steve bites back a shout, his head lolling back and oh god, Bucky can't do this. But he has to, he _has to_ , so he walks as fast he can out of the alley and down the street, his head bent low, straining to hear Steve's breath over the wail of the music from the bar.

The hospital's a ways off and Bucky calculates and re-calculates the distance, the time. Shit, shit. He breaks into a run, moving as fast as he can without making Steve cry out. Steve grits his teeth and wheezes. There's blood all down the front of both their shirts now and people gasp and move out of Bucky's way like he's a madman. He wants to scream and throw punches—can't you see he's hurt!?--but he ducks his head, ignores it. They don't matter right now. Nothing does; only Steve.

By the time they reach the hospital his heart is straining in his chest and his lungs burn and he shoulders the front doors open with his last reserve of strength. Steve is whimpering, sucking in air through his teeth and Bucky presses his mouth to Steve's temple, mutters that it's ok, they're here now, Bucky's got him and it's all alright.

The nurse at the reception stands as she sees them, blue eyes wide. Blood, Bucky thinks. There must be so much blood.

“He got stabbed.” Bucky lies because it's easier than the truth, because it's what will get Steve help the quickest. The nurse nods and picks up the phone, speaking in hushed tones and Bucky takes a second to close his eyes, zero in on Steve's breath. It's the most beautiful goddamn sound in the world.

There's a clatter of wheels on the tile and when he opens his eyes, there's a doctor in front of him, and more nurses who lift Steve out of his arms and onto a gurney, barking numbers and phrases to each other that Bucky can't even begin to understand. Steve reaches out blindly and grabs his hand.

“Buck--”It's too loud for him to hear it, but he sees Steve's mouth form the word. Someone gives a signal, the gurney begins to move and Bucky follows, striding alongside it and still holding Steve's hand.

“Sir, Sir--” someone says, and it sounds so distant, like he's in a dream. He looks up to see the double doors that lead into the interior of the hospital, the place that he can't follow, and he lets go just in time.

Their hands disconnect and the double doors swing shut and Bucky stands in the lobby, his heart pounding and his knees wobbling. In his head, the music from the bar still plays, the brass horn shrieking, furious and shrill. It's the last thing he hears before he quietly passes out.

*

After much goading, Bucky gets Steve to come out on a double date with him. They're going to the dancehall and they are going to have fun, Bucky informs him. _Do you remember what fun is, Steve? I'll explain it to you if y'like._

They meet the girls—Frances, a dame from the post office and her cousin Alice—outside their apartment. Bucky takes a brief moment to parse out the introductions as they walk to the dancehall, mentioning—quite helpfully, he thinks—that Steve's an artist. Steve hates it when he does that, but he's got to learn that you can capitalize on that sort of thing with women.

As if to prove his point, Alice perks up a little. She's a tiny little thing, and it's always nice to find a gal who's gotta look up to talk to Steve.

“I am too!” she blurts out, and then immediately covers her mouth, giggling nervously. “I mean...not really, I just paint a little. But I, uh—that's really neat.”

Steve seems genuinely thrilled. “Really? That's swell. Watercolors or...”

Frances gives Bucky a sweet look; _Aw, aren't they cute?_

In the dancehall, Bucky tries to get them all onto the floor but Steve begs off nicely, saying he'd rather watch, and Alice elects to follow him instead, which is—huh, rather new. Frances is delighted, though, grabs Bucky's arm and pulls him out to the center of the floor just as the band starts up a fast number.

Bucky's a good dancer and Frances matches him well enough, laughing wildly when he spins her out and twirls her back in. Over her shoulder, he catches a glimpse of Steve and Alice through the crowd. They're standing at the edge of the floor, watching the couples whirl by, and Alice holds a bottle of soda in her little hands. It takes Bucky a second to register that they didn't bring anything with them, that Steve must've bought it for her.

Frances tugs on his hand. Without thinking, Bucky spins her, leading her closer to the side of the floor Steve and Alice are on. He looks back over, catching them just as Alice tips the soda bottle towards Steve, who politely takes a small sip from it even though carbonation hurts his stomach. Steve says something to her and she laughs—a real one, too, her eyes crinkled up at the corners.

Bucky doesn't even realize he's stopped moving altogether until Frances stomps her foot.

“What're you looking at?” she demands. “Some other girl?”

Bucky's attention snaps back to her. “Course not, doll.” he says, giving her his most forgivable smile. “How could I? I've got the best one right here.” She rolls her eyes and huffs a little, but she goes with it when he loops an arm around her waist.

Forget about Steve, he thinks, He should be paying attention to the girl he came here with. She's so pretty and sharp, her hair all done up like Rita Hayworth. He leans in, close enough that his lips brush her ear. “Your hair looks lovely.”

She preens, touching one of the curls. “Thank you, James. Alice did it for me; she got the style from a photo in _Silver Screen_.'

“Well then, give my compliments to Alice. But the loveliness is all you.”

She gives him a light little smack and an _Oh, stop it_ but she's blushing, all over the apples of her cheeks and down her neck. Bucky glances over the top of her head, in search of Steve and Alice but they aren't where he last saw them. He bites down on the inside of his cheek.

“So--your cousin,” he says conversationally during a slow song. You had to be careful when bringing up other dames around the girl you were with. One poor word choice and next thing you knew, you'd be getting screamed at for sneaking around on her. “Thanks for bringing her out.”

“Oh, it was nothing.” Frances says with a toss of her curls. “She's staying with me and my folks for the summer. She's from the middle of nowhere, and I think she wanted to have a little excitement before she gets married.”

Bucky's pulse picks up. “Married?”

“Yeah, she's engaged to some farmer. High-school sweetheart, that sort of thing. Real old fashioned, but he's in the army for now. I hope you don't mind. I figured I'd let her tell your friend on her own.” She tells him, glancing up with those pretty dark eyes.

Bucky resists the urge to kiss her right on the mouth.

“Nah,” he says, keeping his voice level. “I don’t mind. Steve’s an agreeable guy, he’ll understand”

“Oh, I'm sure.” Frances says, with a knowing sort of grin. She's an alright gal, he thinks to himself. And she really does have beautiful hair.

As the night winds down, they find Steve and Alice in the back near the doors, and they walk the girls home. Frances hints at a nightcap but Bucky's no good for it. It's hot out, despite the late hour and he feels itchy under his skin, unsettled. He really just wants to go home and lie in the dark with Steve. He does promise to call, though, and she seems satisfied with that.

“Sorry if you didn't have fun,” Bucky tells Steve as they meander home. They're in no hurry; if they get mugged, they get mugged. Not like they've got anything for a mugger to take. “We didn't mean to lose you two.”

Steve shakes his head with surprising conviction. “Don't apologize, Buck. Of course I had fun.” Steve has said that after every double date before and Bucky didn't even realized the extent to which he was lying until right now. He means it this time.

“Did'ya neck with her?” Bucky asks, his stomach twisting painfully.

Steve blushes, ducks his head. “She kissed me, that's all. She's got a fella in the military, I didn't think anything else'd be right.”

Bucky does what he knows he’s supposed to do. He makes a big show of guffawing, slapping Steve on the back and spinning them both around while Steve tries to wiggle out of it, elbowing at Bucky's stomach. This is good news. Bucky tells himself. Steve had a good time with a girl. This is good news.

“Knock it off, Buck.” Steve tells him with a sheepish smile. _He's happy_ , Bucky repeats to himself. _He's happy. So be happy too_. But he can’t. Something blooms deep inside his chest, ugly and monstrous.

The apartment is dark and warm when they return. They toe off their shoes and shuck their shirts and pants, climbing into Steve’s bed in the back room. It's how they sleep in the summer anyhow; the backroom is the coolest on account of the corner fan and the window. They got the fan on clearance, so it clicks loudly on the highest speed, but they're used to it by now.

Bucky's tired as hell, but he can tell Steve wants to talk so they talk. He tells Steve about his night, embellished for dramatic effect, and he can feel Steve's skinny body bend with laughter beside him. He throws an arm out and Steve rests his head on it, tossing his arm over Bucky's chest. It's how they do things, it just always has been.

His eyes are going swimmy with exhaustion, his knees starting to ache from dancing all night, and Steve's gotten onto the topic of internment camps so Bucky's not going to get him to shut up anytime soon. Steve keeps watching his face, reaching over to touch his arm when he wants his attention. Bucky dozes anyway, distantly aware of Steve's bony fingers tracing along the big veins of his arm, like it's happening to someone else, in a different place.

He's nearly out when Steve's hand drifts from his arm to his bare stomach, scratching at the skin there, right under Bucky's navel. It almost hurts, in a good way, and that scares him a little, that Steve could hurt him at all. Steve parts his mouth against Bucky's bare shoulder, breath ghosting over the skin. Slowly, and not at all on accident, he touches the waistband of Bucky's underwear, his thumb dipping under the elastic.

Bucky is wide awake now, staring at the ceiling. In the corner, the fan clicks along frantically and Bucky's heart matches it, beat for fucking beat.

*

A week goes by and they both have trouble sleeping. Things between them are strange, off balance in a way they've never been before, not even after Mrs. Rogers passed on. A week goes by, and Bucky doesn't want to look at Steve anymore.

Tonight, they sleep with their backs to each other, hard walls and harder silences. Bucky wants to reach for him, ask him how this started but he doesn't think he'd like the answer. Steve's not asleep either, but he tries to fake his breathing like he is, as though Bucky wouldn't know the difference. He stares around the back room—Steve's drawings on the walls, the ugly armchair in the one corner, the easel Bucky built for him in the other. Like a compulsion, he thinks of Steve's hand pushing into his underwear, the scrape of blunt nails at the juncture of his thigh.

The night is sticky and hot, and the light from the streetlamps outside give the room a stifling yellow glow. Bucky doesn't feel well, dizzy with the memory of Steve holding his palm in front of Bucky's mouth, nudging him with a bony knee. And Bucky had done it, had opened his mouth and licked a wet stripe from heel to fingertips, drunk with the feeling of Steve's eyes trained on him, pinning him down.

It feels wrong to think about this now, with Steve under the same sheet, close enough to touch.

Steve turns in bed one, twice, and then sits up, grumbling under his breath. The window is open in a sad attempt to get some air circulating, and Steve shoulders it up a little higher, wooden frame groaning in protest, and climbs out onto their fire escape landing. Bucky listens, ready to jump out at a moment's notice. There's the clank of metal and a sigh and then nothing, radio silence.

Bucky counts in his head. He lies still for all of three minutes and twenty seconds before he rolls over and up onto his knees, following Steve through the window.

The world is black and humid around him, smelling of garbage and the briny water of the East River. Steve's sitting on the edge of the landing, and even in silhouette he is all bones and sharp angles. He's got his legs between the balusters, dangling in the air and the sight of it makes Bucky's skin prickle uncomfortably. He wants to grip the back of Steve's neck, tell him to knock it off before he hurts himself.

When he settles next to Steve, he can see the faint scar on his chest near his collarbone, pink and healed. Steve's got his forehead resting against the railing and he glares at Bucky suspiciously out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you want.” he says flatly.

Bucky doesn't say anything just yet, clamping his hands around his knees to stop himself from pushing Steve's sweaty hair off his forehead. He doesn't even try to dangle his legs through the slats; he knows they won't fit. They haven't fit since he was in the 10th grade, but Steve's still do. Probably always will. He stares at Brooklyn spread out before them, the shadowy clusters of apartments and buildings dotted with lamplight, and the jagged rise of Manhattan in the distance, looking for all the world like one of those miniature models he's seen at the fairs.

And then, even scarier, the ink dark sky above them. They're in the city so Bucky can't see the stars that well, but he's been in the countryside. He knows what it looks like all lit up, the ribbon of the Milky Way snaking through the blackness. Steve's never seen it, he realizes. Steve's never seen the Milky Way and Bucky can't say for sure if he ever will. It's the saddest possible thing he can think of. He drops his forehead to the railing, the night air cooling the sweat on the back of his neck. He is so useless and he is so tired and still, Steve is right here.

“Buck,” Steve says, mostly to the rusted metal of the spindles. “Buck, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” Bucky replies, only half listening, watching the rise and fall of Steve's pale chest. Somewhere below them, a car horn blares, then another, and then there's some shouting. Steve's eyes go wide and searching, like he can spot the altercation from way up here.

Steve's such a strange thing at times, and God Almighty, Bucky wouldn't trade him for the world.

“It's just,” Steve starts, then stops, then swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. His voice cracks.“It's been a hell of a year, is all.” Watching him, Bucky wonders if there was ever a time in his life when he didn't feel this way. If there was, he can't remember. Steve is the fixed point of his universe, the occurrence around which everything else revolves. He gets up on his knees at Steve's side. “Bucky, what're you--”

He reaches a hand out, curling it around Steve's inner shoulder, his thumb resting in the hollow of Steve's throat. His skin under Bucky's touch is flushed and damp, but at least it's from the heat and not a fever. Steve looks up at him and doesn't speak, hesitating only a moment before he pulls his legs up through the balusters and straightens up on his knees too. They're face to face, close in a way they haven't been in days. Bucky's mouth is dry, his tongue a swollen, useless thing.

Steve’s eyes go wide as Bucky moves his hand to cup the back of his neck. The metal of the landing bites into his knees, makes his eyes water, but he stays rooted in his spot, legs trembling. Steve swears under his breath, one hand coming up to rest on Bucky's hip and Bucky wills himself not to twitch or shy away, just to stay fucking still. He can do that. He can do still.

The streetlights catch Steve's hair, his eyes; he's the brightest thing on the planet, the brightest thing Bucky's ever seen. He knees forward and moves his hand to the small of Bucky's back, pressing him in so they're flush up and down their fronts and Bucky shudders and moans. He buries his face in the crook of Steve's shoulder, making these noises, little desperate sounds that he can't stand to hear.

Steve pushes at him, mumbling for him to sit down, and he climbs on top of him, knobby knees bracketing Bucky's hips. He sucks in a breath against Bucky's slack mouth and then he kisses him so hard Bucky's jaw aches with it, his heart pounding in his chest. He holds Steve as close to him as he possibly can, and Steve's hands curl against his shoulders, blunt fingernails biting into the skin and setting Bucky's teeth on edge. Steve pulls away to mouth at Bucky's neck and Bucky kicks out helplessly, keening high in the back of his throat.

 _I'm not a queer._ he thinks desperately. Steve is in his lap and Bucky's skin burns everywhere they touch. He's delirious with it, inhaling the sticky night air with rough, shuddering gasps. _I'm not a fucking queer._

Steve bites down on the muscle of his neck and Bucky curls against him, sobbing his name.

*

 

It's six o'clock on a Tuesday and normally, they'd be getting ready to settle in for the night but instead, they're at opposite ends of the room—Steve on the armchair, Bucky bracing himself against the door frame leading into the kitchen--and he's trying to explain to Steve that wanting to send his army checks back to him does not mean he doesn't think Steve can't take care of himself. It's going over like a lead balloon, as Bucky foresaw that it probably would.

He can't stand it, sometimes, the way Steve gets. The way he doesn't understand that Bucky just wants him to be able to have what he deserves. He can't stand that they're having this fight at all, that this is something they even have to worry about. He's struck with a wave of longing for the stifling heat of summer time, bedsheets sticking to his skin and Steve's mouth pressed between his shoulder blades.

It had finally started to cool at the beginning of September, like a fever breaking. His induction notice had come just as the weather began to change.

“It's not a matter of...of supporting you, Steve, Jesus!” Bucky snaps. “I'd just rather you have it than the banks, is all. You know I don't trust those bastards. Give half of it to Becca and my ma and the twins and then put the rest...I don't know, shove it in the mattress in the other bedroom. If you need it, it's there. I'm not gonna scrap with you over a few bucks.” He hopes Steve uses all of it, he thinks. He hope Steve spends every last goddamn cent.

Steve's already shaking his head before Bucky's even finished. “But it's yours, Buck. You should be saving it for when you come home.” His voice is so earnest, so sure. Bucky wants to ask him how he can be so sure about that, about anything at all.

He's so sick of this, sick of thinking about it, sick of talking about it. He closes his eyes, scrapes a thumbnail against his forehead. “I don't think I really need money where I'm goin', pal.”

Steve turns to look at him, his shadow of his eyelashes long against his face. “Don't say that.” 

Bucky just shrugs, forces his mouth into a little smile, but it only makes Steve mad and he looks away.

They lapse back into silence. Bucky stares out the fire escape window and doesn't move from his spot in the doorway. The room is golden with dusk—the sun starts setting when Bucky clocks out of work and by the time he gets home it's usually on it's way out, the descent getting shorter and shorter as the days drag on. It's late fall now, and the cool of it is a strange, unfamiliar sensation in contrast with the summer they just endured. They've closed the window. They've turned off the fan. Sometimes Bucky steps out in the morning and he feels like he's walking in a different world.

“Stevie, please do this for me.” he says softly. He doesn't want Steve to change, but he does wish that sometimes he would just take what he's given without putting up a fight.“You don't gotta spent it if you don't want. But just. I'd feel better, if you had it on hand.” Steve's shoulders are still tense and he stares at the floorboard. Bucky wills him to turn his way again, wants to see his face half covered in the light from the setting sun. It's a dumb wish, he thinks. All of his wishes are.

“I don't wanna fight.” Steve finally says and Bucky relaxes, knowing that he's won. He'll send his checks straight home to Brooklyn and Steve'll have wood for the fire and the rent in on time and he can keep his inhaler topped off without going hungry. It's the happiest Bucky's felt since he got his notice and he has to press his face against the doorframe to keep from smiling.

All he says is, “Good. Cause I don't either.”

After dinner and Flash Gordon, Bucky does the dishes while Steve sweeps the floor, the radio warbling in the corner. When Bucky's put the last plate away, he turns to find Steve behind him, holding out a piece of paper.

“Wha's this?”

Steve shrugs with one shoulder as Bucky takes it from him. It's a page from his sketchbook, the thick paper heavy between his fingers.

“I found it the other week and finished it up. Thought maybe you could take it to basic with you. You probably can't hang it in the walls in your barrack but..” He trails off, scratching at the back of his head. His shirt sleeve had come unrolled, the cuff brushing the center of his palm. It was an old one of Bucky's, still too big even after Becca tailored it.

It's the sketch Steve had started that day at the park, Bucky lying on his back with the sky all pink and gold. Steve finished drawing in his arm, and added himself in, too, sitting cross legged off to the side, braced back on his arms. Bucky fingers the jagged fringe on the top edge from where Steve tore it out of his book and he looks at the drawing for a good long while.

“It's great.” he finally says. “I mean it.” His voice is too soft, on the verge of breaking so he swallows hard, forces his eyes up. “If they don't have mirrors at Fort Benning, I'll still be able to remind myself of what a looker I am. And I'll get to see your mug if I feel like it too.”

Steve grins wide, his smile splitting open. “Y'gonna kiss me or what?” he challenges.

Bucky carefully sets the paper on the table and wraps his arms around Steve's waist. Steve leans into him, lets himself be gathered up and taken in. They kiss against the counter until their lips go swollen and their eyes are only ringed in blue.

It's a scramble for the bed then, tugging clothes off along the way so Steve can get on top of him as soon as they hit the mattress. Bucky takes both their cocks in hand and brings them off in frantic, ungraceful strokes that make him cry out and bow his spine against the bed. Steve gasps above him, his hips stuttering, his mouth just barely parted and Bucky can't stop watching him, doesn't ever want to stop watching him.

Something rises in his chest, so suddenly he's almost breathless from it, and he comes, spilling out onto his stomach in shuddering pulses. Steve makes a beautiful, intelligible sound and finish right behind him, pushing a hand into his hair. Without thinking, Bucky bares his throat to him, wishing for something he doesn't have a name for. He doesn't even know if he gets it in the end.

*

At first he was angry they were sending him so far away, but now that's he almost finished with basic, he's come to appreciate it for the favor that it was. Georgia's alright in the winter, more humid than he's used to, and he’s not crazy about the mosquitos, but he adapts. The shit they have him do is exhausting and unpleasant as a blanket rule, but it'd be worse to do it in the freezing cold.

It's day two of a field training exercise, one of their last ones before graduation. He sits at the remains of a fire pit with a man named Lamantia, one of those blonde Italians out of Sicily by way of Chicago, and they clean their rifles side by side.

“Less than two weeks 'til we're done.” Lamantia says. Night's good and settled around them, most of the platoon asleep in their tents. The ones who aren't, like the two of them, are up on security detail. Bucky's always volunteering for the weird late-night hours, because he may as well. He regards sleep in the abstract now, not really something he ever does on purpose. But Lamantia's got real issues, some sleep disorder he left off his forms, so they're used to partnering off.

Bucky nods, distracted as he slides the final piece of his rifle home, muffling the click of it as best he can. Lamantia glances at Bucky's intact rifle, then down to his own, still in pieces in his hands.

“How did you--”

“Practice.” is all Bucky says. He's good at this stuff, adept in a way he never really expected. The forest rustles and hums around him and he tightens his grip on his gun, shouldering the strap. “You headed back to Chicago after?”

Lamantia continues to reassemble his rifle part by part, a little quicker now. “That's the plan. Four days with Sophie and then off to--”

“North Africa.” Bucky finishes for him. “Jesus.” That seems too soon, but Lamantia's right. Bucky has a lot of trouble keeping the timeline straight sometimes.

“What about you, hmmm?” Lamantia lights up a cigarette and offers one to Bucky, who lights it off of Lamantia's own. “Home to your girl in Brooklyn?”

“My what?” Bucky laughs. He's never told Lamantia about any girls-- not any current ones, at least, and certainly not any waiting for him at home, if you didn't count Becca and his Ma.

Lamantia shoulders him roughly. “Shove off it. You New Yorkers always think you're so sly. Like I don't notice you going moony eyed all over your letters. Give me a break, you're worse than O'Hanrahan.” O'Hanrahan was one of the nicest guys in their platoon, a ginger haired, corn fed Irish kid who was madly in love with his fiancee. Bucky feels his face getting hot and thanks God for the darkness around them.

For the first few weeks, he actively tried not thinking about Steve too much, but by now he just does what he likes and saves himself the energy. He's got a stack of paper a quarter inch thick hidden in the lining of his mattress, letters back and forth, pictures, the drawing. He only looks at the drawing when he really misses home, worried he'll somehow wear it out otherwise. It's been eight weeks since he's seen Steve in anything other than quick self portraits sketched into the margins of bigger, more elaborate pieces.

He's drifted off, he realizes, the honking sound of Lamantia's muffled laughter bringing him back in. Basic, the forest, the rifle on his shoulder and the cigarette burning in his hand. Lamantia's enjoying himself immensely at Bucky's expense. “Oh, you poor bastard,” Lamantia gloats. “What's she like?”

Bucky's hands flutter uselessly in front of him; he doesn't even know where to begin. In some ways he had almost been grateful to leave for Basic because in that apartment, in that life, he thought he might've been losing his mind. He was on the skids, a drop dead sprint, and some days looking at Steve was like getting punched in the stomach. Bucky thought about him all the time, all he ever wanted to do was get a hand on him and it was driving him crazy. How does he explain that, explain Steve?—his sharp eyes, the hard set of his shoulders, the immense strength pent up inside a body that could barely hold it all. The way Steve looked at him like Bucky was the one thing he could see in color.

“I'm tellin' ya,” he insists. “I don't have a girl.”

Lamantia shakes his head, grinning ruefully. “Have it your way, Brooklyn.” he says. “We'll get it out of you eventually. It's a long walk to Tunisia, y’know.” Bucky inhales wrong off the cigarette and he holds back a cough, eyes watering, lungs screaming for air.

*

He comes back from visiting his Ma to find Steve sitting on the window sill, sketchbook propped against his knees. Steve hears him come in and glances over his shoulder, gives him a wave. Bucky's hands clench and unclench around an invisible rifle. He has four days of leave before he ships out and he made a beeline straight for Brooklyn. He didn't sleep at all his last night at the fort so he promptly passed out on the train, waking up groggy and disoriented as New Jersey passed him by out the window. He'll be back on that same train day after tomorrow, like he barely even made it to home at all.

“How's everyone at the Barnes household?” Steve asks. Bucky shoulders off his coat and bends to unlace his boots so he doesn't track slush into the house. It's barely past February and the snow's stuck around, turning into a slurry of gray mush on the sidewalks and the gutters.

“Good. They say hello. Becca keeps telling me to tell you to come around the house more often.” Becca had picked up smoking while he was away, but she had to dangle her arm out the kitchen window when she did it. Ma didn't want it around the twins, blissfully unaware that Art had been smoking half a pack a day since he was 15. “The twins'll be graduating high school in the spring; can you believe that?”

Steve snorts. “You've only been gone three months.” he points out.

“I know, I just—forget sometimes.” The twins had still been in middle school when he'd gone to move in with Steve, and Becca had been right out of high school. Now Becca's the one itching to move out, recently engaged to a guy Bucky used to work with down at the plant, which seems backwards and all of a sudden. The guy's got a bum knee so he'll never ship out, and they'll probably get married when Bucky's away. Steve'll be there, though, and he'll draw them some beautiful portrait that Becca will cry over and put in a frame.

He knees up onto the bed, hobbling over to where Steve's perched on the windowsill. The sill's too narrow for Bucky to even think about sitting, so he just stays kneeling on the bed, crowding up behind Steve and looking over his shoulder. He must've just started whatever it is he's drawing. The only thing on the page is a few faint lines.

“Can I help you?” Steve asks and Bucky pinches him, keeps a hand on his waist and leans against his back. Steve lets him, tips his head back a bit to rest on Bucky's shoulder. It's not the most comfortable position, but Bucky likes to watch him draw.

Steve goes back to sketching, a vaguely rectangular shape forming under the tip of his pencil. Bucky watches him, and they don't say much for a long time.

“What time's your train on Monday?” Steve asks. Bucky doesn't jump at his voice; nothing really surprises him anymore.

“Seven. A night at the fort and then I ship out first thing.”

Steve tips his head as he shades in a corner, his hair brushing against Bucky's chin. The drawing is a room, now, with a doorway leading into another one. Steve had tried to enlist a second time last month and got denied again, which honestly surprised Bucky. Sure, Steve wasn't physically up to it, but he was smarter than most of the guys Bucky knew at Basic. He figured Uncle Sam would've been able to put him somewhere that could work, intelligence or a logistical office somewhere.

He knows Steve's still sore about it, so he tries to change the subject. He points to a corner of the picture, his finger hovering just over the page so he doesn't smear anything.

“You've got the pattern on the armchair wrong. It's a lot uglier than that.”

“Oh, bite me.”

Bucky does, laying his teeth softly into the fabric of Steve's shirt. He can see that the drawing is of their apartment, the view of it from the windowsill, with the back room and the wide doorway that leads into the kitchen. He can see a shadow of what will become the doorway in the kitchen that opens onto his bedroom. Jesus, he'd practically forgotten it was there.

“There was this little installation at the art museum last month.” Steve says to break the bit of silence.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. The easel is in the corner now, a blank canvas propped onto it. “Magical realism in art. It was neat; you would've liked it.”

Bucky's hand is still on Steve's hip, and he slips it under the loosened shirttail, stroking his thumb against the skin. He tries to gauge if Steve's lost any more weight just by touch, but he feels mostly the same, maybe even a little less boney. “Was it pictures of magicians pulling rabbits out of hats? Sawing pretty girls in half? Eating people alive?”

He bites again at Steve's shoulder, harder this time, wetting the fabric with his tongue. Under his hand, Steve twitches and sighs. They've messed around every day since Bucky got home, but he's been gone so long that each time still feels like the first. Bucky wonders what it'd be like if he ended up coming home from North Africa, if they would just lock themselves inside for a week and have at it as many times as they could until there was nothing left.

The room continues to come to life under Steve's hand. The cabinets in the kitchen take shape, the pictures on the wall represented in dark smudges of color. Steve sets it aside on the edge of the windowsill and turns, sliding onto the bed and Bucky sinks down to sit cross legged. He's out of reasons for why he shouldn't do this.

“Nah, nothing quite so dramatic.” Steve says, climbing into his lap. “But it made me think of you.” Bucky winds his arms around Steve's waist, his mind going a mile a minute. He can't think. He doesn’t want to think. Steve traces a finger down his throat, right to the hollow of his neck. “Doesn't matter much anyway,” he says softly, resting their foreheads together. “I'm just real glad you're home.” 

He kisses him, achingly gentle, and it's the best thing Bucky's ever known.

He's suddenly struck with something like hatred for the year they've just had, for all the change it's brought over them. He hates how he is now, how Steve has ruined him, how Bucky can't think about sleeping alone or listening to the radio or dancing without feeling like he's gonna shake apart. He can't do this, he thinks. He's no good for it. He just wants to bury his face in Steve's flannel and cry himself into pieces and sleep forever. He doesn't want to go to war. He just wants to be here. He just wants to be right here.

But in the end, he supposes it doesn't matter what he wants. It's all in his head and besides, Bucky would never let anyone do this to him. Steve is under his skin, in the marrow of his bones and they'll die together either way.

**Author's Note:**

> [@ tumblr](http://deadmoneys.tumblr.com)


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